Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council has officially agreed to part ways with Jacobs Engineering, which has operated the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants since 2006.
A year ago, city staff conducted an audit of the Water Treatment Plant that uncovered multiple technical and maintenance deficiencies at the plant.
Jacobs has gone to work addressing the deficiencies, but the City Council began looking at other options, including contracting with another firm to run the plants or operating them in-house with city employees.
Jacobs made an offer to continue serving the city, and the city countered the offer, including a provision that would require Jacobs to pay for the recently hired city’s utilities manager, former Jacobs project manager for Sweet Home, who was brought in to oversee and manage the contract.
Jacobs Vice President Efrain Rodriguez appeared with regional manager Brian Helliwell at the council’s regular meeting on Feb. 11 in an effort to continue working with the city.
“One of the key things that we have been doing for a number of years is to deliver an annual fee that provides a service (that is) cost effective,” Rodriguez said. Jacobs generates savings for the city, and adjusts fees only as needed, resulting in a cost increase that is lower than inflation year over year.
“We have been working on a few things, including a request from the city to evaluate potential adjustments to modify our scope or our fees,” Rodriguez said. “We think we have a path forward on a plan to jointly address the needs, to continue to meet all contractual obligations.
“We could even come to a place where we could fix our escalation for one year to give you some savings, but the item that made it really difficult for us was the request to consider funding the utility manager position. Because of the way that we try to optimize our fee year over year, it makes it very difficult for us to take such a big adjustment on any given year.”
Rodriguez proposed forming a joint work group to update the structure of the contract, including terms and conditions to reduce cost, increase city control and improve performance metrics.
“I think those are the key drivers that we would all like to address,” Rodriguez said. If the council does not wish to move forward, then “we will support you” with a “smooth and controlled transition.”
“There’s 48 things on this document that I noted, and only 14 of them have an OK by them,” said Councilor Dave Trask, referencing the list of deficiencies. “I’m going to assume, which maybe I shouldn’t, that some of those things have been covered.
“I don’t know that I can trust that’s going to happen. I just don’t know. How in the world can we believe that you’re going to do what you say when we’ve had this building for (10) years. I don’t know that I can get to (that) point unless I see some major changes, major changes, to this process. If you hadn’t got caught, where would we be? Where would we be in another year with all these deficiencies that we have found?
“You’re going to have to go a ways to get my trust back, and that’s going to be hard to do. My faith in that is pretty damaged right now. We should have never gotten here. There’s no way in the world that we should have gotten here with the plant that we have, that’s fairly new.”
Mayor Greg Mahler said the council sent a counter-proposal.
“That was not negotiable,” Mahler said.
“If council’s not interested in their proposals, then staff can begin working with them on an exit strategy, work something out and bring that to you,” said City Manager Ray Towry.
The council reached a consensus to transition away from Jacobs.
Present at the meeting were councilors Cortney Nash, Lisa Gourley, Mahler, Diane Gerson, James Goble and Trask. Susan Coleman was absent.